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Forum Post: Open Letter to OWS Movement, Please Share

Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 28, 2011, 6:50 p.m. EST by 1outwestperson (0) from Beatty, NV
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

I support and am encouraged by the OWS movement. I appreciate that the People are demonstrating against the greed and corruption in our political system. As an older person who has participated in and witnessed many transformative movements, in my humble opinion, it is time for the OWS movement to focus on political reform that is actionable beyond the expression of anger and discontent.

I would humbly suggest that the most important action for immediate reform is to take the money out of politics by enacting tough, new, Campaign Finance Reform law.

Millions and millions and millions of dollars are spent in every election on both the state and federal levels.(Imagine what else could be done with that money if applied to greater good.) The more money one has to spend and donate to campaigns, the more influence you gain with elected officials. This system is bound to corruption and is a roadblock to the tenets of governing for the Common Good. We the People have witnessed this repeatedly in a deadlocked Congress who have essentially abdicated their responsibility to govern for the Common Good. (Recall how perilously close our nation came to defaulting this summer. It was unprecedented in our nation's history and did and should alarm every American.)

Poles clearly indicate that most Americans are fed up with government and the corruption big money introduces into our political system. Until we take the money out of politics, our democracy remains endangered, and the Common Good imperiled.

I would humbly suggest that political campaigns be publicly financed by a $5 dollar assessment on our tax returns or something similar, without any loopholes to undermine the use and equal distribution of this money among candidates running for public office. I would further suggest (if the People decide to allow it) that any contribution made to a political campaign by any individual, family, business, corporation or Pac be strictly limited to $50 dollars or less per candidate, per elective term for a particular office, period. No exceptions.

OWS proclaims to be a leaderless movement which is open to all regardless of background or affiliation. Wonderful!!!

Taking the money out of politics by Campaign Finance Reform is surely one, actionable, political reform this movement could articulate, endorse, and I believe easily achieve. It would not only be historic, but a powerful legacy which demonstrates to future generations of Americans what we the People can accomplish when we act together, non-violently, to hold our government accountable, and to exercise and protect our democratic principals that our Constitution of this great nation guarantees.

With great humility, I ask the 99% to consider at their next General Assemblies across the nation to include in their agendas for discussion, as soon as is practicle, the possibility of articulating and endorsing a request for Campaign Finance Reform. Then in due time, issue a call to action to make the reform happen. In this way we can additionally Occupy Congress, peacefully with our collective voices.

I fervently believe until the money is taken out of politics, government will remain unresponsive to the People and the needs of the Common Good.

In sympathy and support for the Common Good, 1outwestperson

4 Comments

4 Comments


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[-] 1 points by CSetton (68) 12 years ago

THANK YOU! Excellent post.

[-] 1 points by gawdoftruth (3698) from Santa Barbara, CA 12 years ago

awesome post. we need attention to all of the many details, not just this one.

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Campaign_Finance_Reform

putting such proposals to the collective up inside of this forum is increasingly tossing pearls to swine. we need your voice at the wiki.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPR3GlpQQJA

I have been active here since the very beginning, and since the very beginning I have been trying to make some core points. These points clearly have not been digested or fully understood by the mob, and so I'm going to try to make a further attempt here again.

  1. Merely protesting in the streets will not bring change. In fact merely protesting in the streets is in fact a means to the end of avoiding the real work of a revolution, which consists of the evolutionary solutions, answers, problem solving process, and new political alignment we create.
  2. This forum is absolutely disorganized. It won't be read by most people and it won't and can't function as a core organizational system.
  3. Back at the very start of this, I petitioned the admin to add multiple sub forums and a wiki. Multiple sub forums were promised but have never arrived. I think that this tells us that the intention actually of this forum is message control and containment. The entire purpose really of this forum has always been to keep us spinning in disorganization. We are hanging out on a forum that expressly exists to actually keep us confused and disorganized.
  4. The real work of a revolution isn't going to happen on forums, it needs to happen in a much more organized fashion using collaborative software.
  5. The assorted other details about how to collaborate, how to work open source direct democracy, how to focus in on science instead of isms, how to become hyper rational about this, are details which are essential and crucial, without which we can predict the movement to fail.
  6. Technically speaking we are not 99 percent, we are one tenth of one percent attempting to represent the 99 percent. Our core mission must be to communicate to and with the 99 percent, and get them to join us. This forum will not accomplish that and neither will any of the other main websites.
  7. You can follow other people out to other wikis and other websites, where they will try to get you to get involved with what they want and their program, but frankly speaking, there is no other website and no other operation out there which understands the complexities involved with meaningful organization. In short, everyones being led to get involved here there and everywhere else, scattering the movement in directions which ultimately do not gain us critical mass, criticial momentum, or critical systemic lucidity.
  8. I have managed to get a wiki put up and have already put on that wiki evolutionary details which make it more organized than anything else. I can't do this alone. There are 10 or so wikis now out there, most of which were created in response to my pleas for a wiki, and several of which are in domains owned and operated by some corporation, (wikia, etc) And which we can thus assume will simply be closed, shut down, or deleted if they become useful to the movement.
  9. Probably at least half of the invites you have to go participate at some other site are people who are scamming everyone to waste time and energy, distort the movement, co opt it, and etc. When you walk off into a closet ask yourself how you know that the closet isn't created by some fed, or by some republican, or by some democrat, in order to sway things in their direction.
  10. The only meaningful strategic option we have for real change in this country is to create a new third party, and take every political office in this country.
  11. Once that is done, we can have an article 5 convention. If we have an article 5 convention before getting rid of the oligachs, that just opens the genie from the bottle for them to abuse that process with their corruption and evil.

For these reasons, I beg of you to please immediately join me on the wiki. We need to have all of these details and all of these ideas put together in an organized fashion, rather than posted in a long scrawl which will never be read.

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/THE_99%25_POLITICAL_PARTY

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=CMbY87bB-qsCFUPt7Qod9HE8mQ

http://maplight.org/us-congress/guide/data/money?9gtype=search&9gkw=list%20of%20campaign%20donations&9gad=6213192521.1&9gag=1786513361&gclid=CP61oYbB-qsCFQFZ7AodcTF0jw

http://www.opensecrets.org/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/our-new-wiki/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/non-violence-evolution-by-paradigm-shift/

[-] 1 points by demonstrator (167) 12 years ago

great post